Flash Meter - the tool you didn't know you needed.

My Sekonic flash meter - A strong ally with the Force.

I learned about photography back in the late 70s and early 80s.  My first flash was a Metz 402 - powered by a lead-acid shoulder-carried battery pack that had enough power to light up the other end of a hockey rink.  After that came a Vivitar and then a host of Nikon flashes.  Then I got into strobes - big ones, complete with soft boxes and barn doors.

I quickly learned that using flash didn't always result in a proper exposure.  As camera sensors began to tie into flash TTL technology, the process became easier, but it wasn't consistent.  Did the flash have enough power to do the job?  You could play with flash output through flash exposure compensation, if your camera and/or flash had the feature.  That always took playing around, and you didn't always know if the exposure was quite right until you got it back to look at the results.  

The problem increased significantly when not using TTL flashes, such as strobes with dial-up power sources.  These manual light sources allow you to increase or decrease flash output without communicating with the camera.  At this point it becomes guesswork.  With rear-view screens and EVFs there was the ability to examine the effect of flash on your subjects.  You could even evoke the honourable histogram if needed, or, if a computer was available, you could have a proper image to refer to.  Tweek, examine, repeat.  A pain.

Along comes the flash meter.  Set the shutter speed and ISO to the camera's and stand where the subject will be in your shot with the meter.  Fire the flash (an assistant or a remote works) and see what the resulting aperture value is.  And here's a thing - it gives a value accurate to 1/10th of a stop.  Adjust the  camera's aperture to the given setting or alter the flash output.  Take another shot.  In three or four minutes, you are ready to go.

When using a flash meter, I never rely on automatic or TTL flash control.  I use manual flash control and adjust the value 1/3rd of a stop at a time.  If I am using more than one flash, I check out each one independently and look for the combined result - plus then I can take a few shots to see the actual results.  Main flash with fill units one to two stops under.  I will often have a background flash to blow out a white screen or properly expose a green or other coloured screen.  Below is a photo of a young lady done using the above technique.

Flash meters take the guesswork out of using flash.  They are around $400 CAD for mine at Amazon, and I have had it for about 20 years.  It's an investment that's worth making.

Thanks for reading.

Eric Svendsen     www.ericspix.com



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